Although applicable in principal to any system that uses array antennas or antenna arrays, the present invention and its underlying problem will be hereinafter described in combination with test systems for array antennas.
In modern communication technologies active beam forming is becoming increasingly important e.g. to increase the capacity of wireless data connections.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop and thoroughly test new designs for array antennas. For testing such antennas multiple source signals with explicitly defined phases and amplitudes are necessary.
With common test equipment one signal source must be provide for every antenna element of the array antenna.
Against this background, the problem addressed by the present invention is providing a simplified test setup.